Deloitte analysts predicted the year's top technology trends. To focus on real-world applications rather than high-level technological concepts, they framed key trends like machine learning, cloud computing, and blockchain against dynamic industry contexts.

AI

Trust will dominate AI in 2023, according to Deloitte. "Trusting our fellow robots"

As machines move from "computing" tasks like spreadsheets to cognitive decision-making, organisations must answer key questions. Deloitte predicts that trust in intelligent, self-learning machines and algorithms will determine business success.

“As algorithms take on probabilistic tasks such as object detection, speech recognition, and image and text generation, the real impact of AI applications may depend on the extent to which their human colleagues understand and approve of what they are doing,” the report states.

Transparency and explainability of the AI may be key to building trust. It's common to call modern technology a "black box" because we don't understand it. Overcoming this issue may be crucial to creating an AI that can be trusted as a colleague.

cloud

In 2023, many companies will focus on "taming the chaos of the cloud." As we master the increasingly complex ecosystems of public, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud solutions in the average enterprise's technology stack, this will happen. According to Deloitte, 85% of companies use two cloud computing platforms and 25% use five. This heterogeneous mix of tools and platforms often gives us all the flexibility and options we need, but it can also cause companies to waste money and miss out on benefits.

“Remember early streaming? This simple new interface offered lower bills and most of what you wanted. The last ten years of the streaming revolution saw two, four, and eight streaming services. I miss simple TV. Because all these streaming services cost close to the big cable bill, cost arbitrage has decreased!

Deloitte's report proposes a "supercloud" or "sky computing" solution: a "abstraction and automation layer" that sits on top of the complex cloud ecosystem and provides dashboards and unified control panels. "Simplicity as a service" is the report's delivery model.

Skills gap

It affects all industries, but STEM-dependent companies are most affected. According to Deloitte, successful companies will use "flexibility – the best capability" to address this issue.

Instead of competing for scarce and expensive external technology talent, they will develop their internal talent. The report suggests that top external appointments with decades of industry experience and advanced degrees from prestigious universities may not provide the talent and innovation resources businesses need to succeed in today's markets. The report's advice, "Don't compete when you can create," seems wise.

Shouldn't we worry that competitors will poach our staff after we spend huge sums retraining and upskilling them? It's great—it shows we're investing in people properly. Investing simultaneously will make their work rewarding enough to keep them there.

Decentralized systems

Bechtel admits that blockchain, the decentralised, encrypted database platform that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, has the worst image of all emerging tech trends. Its most successful use has been to create new "dark web" markets and payment methods for illegal drugs. That makes it confusing why every company from Silicon Valley to Singapore is investing heavily in this technology. This research seeks to eliminate trust in multi-party digital transactions. In 2023,

Mike Bechtel gave examples of real-world problems that distributed, trustless database solutions can solve, such as a state-led vaccination record system. Covid-19, an African cocoa farmer trying to eliminate child labour, and a jeweller competing with synthetic diamond makers while proving its stones are not conflict diamonds.

Central computer modernization

Finally, in 2023, in the midst of cloud computing and mobile computing, we might be surprised to see "mainframe" on a list of the hottest and latest technology trends.

It's an ongoing effort to connect legacy hardware like mainframe platforms with new technologies. Companies are increasingly connecting legacy core systems to emerging technologies using innovative new connectors so each family of systems can do what it does best. better," the report states.

Meuhedet, an Israeli healthcare provider, uses its central systems to record and store patient data because it has always worked well and does not see the need to replace it.

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